The Federal Government has announced the start of the next phase of the verification and biometric capture of civil service pensioners in the South South States of Rivers and Bayelsa.

A statement by the Executive Secretary of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) in Abuja indicated that the verification exercise will take place in Port-Harcourt, to cover pensioners in Rivers State and in Yenagoa, to cover pensioners for Bayelsa on the 16th of this month.

PTAD had earlier concluded verification of civil service pensioners from the North-West and South-East zones of the country in 2015.

As a follow up, pensioners in the North East states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba were recently verified, between November 28 and December 6, 2016.

The directorate said apart from identifying ghost pensioners and putting a stop to fraudulent payments, the exercise has facilitated the restoration of monthly pension payments to genuine pensioners previously removed from the payroll, including those who had never been paid any pension or gratuity.

“4,438 pensioners verified in the North-west and South-East who were hitherto not receiving their pension, were payrolled in November, 2016 and their pension and arrears paid,” the statement said.

The statement indicated that pensioners are expected to come along with the original and photocopies of their relevant retirement credentials for the upcoming exercise as will be published in national dailies and announced on television and radio stations.

“PTAD is equally aware of the sick and infirm pensioners. They are advised to contact PTAD at the centres to enable the mobile verification team reach their homes/hospitals for biometrics,” the statement said.